Problems calculating end dates.

[StuartMantel]

I am having a problem calculating dates/durations.

For most of the project, I am using the standard calendar (with company holidays added).

One task is a process that will run 24 hours 7 days a week. I created a task to start on 8/21/14 with a duration of 114 days.

The standard calendar calculates the end date to 2/5/15. This is correct for a standard work week.

I assigned the task the 24 hour 7 day week calendar and it calculates the end date to 9/27/14 which is only 36 days.

I created a resource called Process Servers and assigned it the 24 hour calendar. The task has calendar set to None. It still has an end date of 9/27. It should be 12/13/14.

If I enter the duration as 2736 hours (114 X 24) it calculates to 12/13.

Can anyone suggest where I can look to correct this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[johnherman]

Sometimes Project is finnicky about when you do certain things. I recommend deleting the task and recreating it, then assign to the Process Servers resource and see if that fixes things.

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The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright

 

[JulieInMaine]

Hello Stuart,

I have can create what you see in your first section after adding a few exceptions. A 114 day duration is actually 114 * 8 or 912 working hours.

When I assign the 24 hours calendar - (no non-working time)I have a calculated finish of 9/28 - but close enough. The 912 hours of duration is now occurring on a calendar that allows 24 hours a day - or 38 days.

If you need the Process server to perform 2736 hours of work, set the Server's base calendar to the 24 hours calendar - assign the Process server and enter 2736 hours of work. Project will calculate the end date of Dec 13 and show a duration of 342 days. (114 days (8 hours) * 3 to account for the 24 hour per day setting.

There is nothing wrong with the math - what do you need to correct?

 

[JulieInMaine]

Also posted to:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...properly/4d8377cb-4108-48c1-8b70-8dca33acf985

 

[StuartMantel]

First, thanks to all who responded. Since posting I did a bit more work.

I created a new calendar 8 hour days 7 work days per week. The calculation showed the dates as expected. But it only calculates 40 hours/week not the 168 hours it actually is.

In this case it doesn't matter because the resource is a computer. If I was using a human resource, the cost calculations would be off. When I get some time, I'll create a bunch of different calendars and see if it affects the dollar calculations the way it affects the dates.

What I don't get is this whole day to hour business. In the past, I have created schedules with 10 hour days, 4 x 12 hour weeks, etc. the date calculation worked, as expected, regardless of how many hours I had in a day. When I enter durations in days, it should use the day in the calendar selected (IMHO). If I enter the duration in hours, it should divide hours/day.

Thanks again.

 

[JulieInMaine]

Sorry, but your comment:

"When I enter durations in days, it should use the day in the calendar selected (IMHO). If I enter the duration in hours, it should divide hours/day."

is just not how Project works. You define the number of hours in the Schedule portion of Options. The definition of days and weeks is what allows users to enter duration in something other than minutes or hours. The calendar set in Project Information is used to initially schedule tasks. When you assign resources, the resource calendar drives the schedule, over riding the project calendar and calculating the work for for the assigned resource. In your scenario with an 8 hour per day 7 day per week calendar, I don't understand your comment of "it only calculates 40 hours per week not the 168 it actually is". Why would it be 168 hours? You've defined a calendar that allows 56 working hours per week. If you want 168 working hours per week, either the resource calendar or the task or project calendar has to be 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.